Starmer'appeasing' big tech firms, says online safety campaigner A leading campaigner has accused the prime minister of appeasing big tech companies and being late to the party in regulating social media and artificial intelligence. Crossbench peer Baroness Kidron told the BBC Sir Keir Starmer needed to get on with it rather than launching more consultations. She also criticised the PM for citing his own experience as a father of two teenage children on social media, arguing that this did not make him an expert on the subject and that his family were sheltered compared to others. The government rejected the claims, with a spokesperson saying it had already introduced some of the strongest online safety protections in the world. Sir Keir has launched a consultation on banning under-16s from social media and promised to crackdown on the addictive elements of the apps.

A new artificial intelligence (AI) model developed by the Chinese company behind TikTok rocked Hollywood this week - not just because of what it can do, but what it could mean for creative industries. Created by tech giant ByteDance, Seedance 2.0 can generate cinema-quality video, complete with sound effects and dialogue, from just a few written prompts. Many of the clips said to have been made using Seedance, and featuring popular characters like Spider-Man and Deadpool, went viral. What is Seedance - and why the stir? Seedance was launched to little fanfare in June 2025 but it is the second version that came eight months later that has caused a major stir.

When a SpaceX rocket failure set the skies aflame over western Europe last February, no-one was sure if the debris was also polluting our atmosphere. Now scientists are directly linking the uncontrolled rocket re-entry to a plume of lithium measured less than 100km above Earth. It is the first time researchers have drawn a direct link between a known piece of space debris crashing to Earth and pollution levels. They warn that as SpaceX chief Elon Musk pledges to launch one million satellites in the coming years, this contamination could be the tip of the iceberg. The scientists were already investigating the problem of pollution from space debris when they realised a SpaceX Falcon 9 had failed in flight.

Bill Gates pulls out of India's AI summit amid Epstein files controversy Bill Gates will not deliver his keynote address at the India AI Impact Summit in Delhi, his philanthropic organisation said hours before the Microsoft co-founder was due to speak. The Gates Foundation said the decision was made after careful consideration and to ensure the focus remains on the [summit's] key priorities, but did not elaborate. Gates's withdrawal comes amid a controversy over his ties to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein after he was named in new files released by the US Department of Justice in January. Gates's spokesperson has called the claims in the files absolutely absurd and completely false, and the billionaire has said he regretted spending time with Epstein . Gates has not been accused of wrongdoing by any of Epstein's victims and the appearance of his name in the files does not imply criminal activity of any kind.

Evidence is mounting that Elon Musk's decision to deny Russian forces access to his Starlink satellite-based internet service has blunted Moscow's advance, caused confusion among Russian soldiers and handed an advantage to Ukraine's defenders. And what can Ukraine's military achieve in the meantime? The Russians lost their ability to control the field, a Ukrainian drone operator who goes by the callsign Giovanni told us. I think they lost 50% of their capacity for offence, he said. That's what the numbers show.

Tech platforms would have to remove intimate images which have been shared without consent within 48 hours, under a proposed UK law. The government said tackling intimate image abuse should be treated with the same severity as child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and terrorist content. Failure to abide by the rules could result in companies being fined up to 10% of their global sales or have their services blocked in the UK. Janaya Walker, interim director of the End Violence Against Women Coalition, said the welcome and powerful move... rightly places the responsibility on tech companies to act. The proposals are being made through an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill, which is making its way through the House of Lords.

Watch: Skier tells BBC of'panic' as avalanche hit Italian slopes A skier filmed the moment an avalanche struck a mountain valley in northern Italy on Tuesday. The footage, filmed by Siobhan Halford, shows a group of people, including children, in a queue, covered in snow after being hit by the aftermath of an avalanche in Courmayeur. Speaking to the BBC News Channel, Halford, who is from Billericay, Essex, described how the moment unfolded. We couldn't see, it was hard to breathe. There was a lot of panic, she said.

Child sex abuse is becoming increasingly complex to police and officers are arresting an average of 1,000 potential offenders each month, the National Crime Agency (NCA) says. It says an increasing reliance on online platforms and advances in technology, such as AI image creation, are exacerbating the problem, with algorithms and digital communities connecting offenders to share and promote child sex abuse material. According to the NCA, the number of arrests has roughly doubled in the past three years. Statistically, potential offenders are in every community and victims in every school, the NCA said. It added that police cannot address the issue alone and called on technology companies to do more.

'The search is soul-destroying': Young jobseekers on the struggle to find work Young people are bearing the brunt of the UK's weak labour market, according to new figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Some 16.1% of people aged 16 to 24 are not able to find work, compared to a national unemployment figure of 5.1%. That does not include young people who are out of work but not looking for a job, due to ill health or who are still studying. Businesses, particularly in sectors that traditionally gave young people their first jobs, like retail and hospitality, say higher costs are leading them to cut staff or not take on new hires, which often hits young workers the hardest. But graduate-level roles are also proving harder to land.

Electronic music artist and tech creator Look Mum No Computer has been chosen to represent the UK at this year's Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna, the BBC has announced. Look Mum No Computer is a solo artist, songwriter and YouTuber, who is also described as an inventor of unique musical machines. The singer first arrived on the music scene back in 2014 as Sam Battle, frontman of indie rock band Zibra. The group performed at Glastonbury in 2015 for BBC Introducing. Since then, he has been performing and recording under his solo name.